Cal, Stanford managing expectations

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, October 1, 2009

The last time someone thought having Cal and Stanford play the Los Angeles schools at the same time on the same day in the same general area was a good idea, it was way back in ... 2006?

Yeah, 2006. You just don't remember because it didn't seem to bother anyone. At least not until USC crushed Stanford 42-0. Now that seemed to agitate a few folks.

But because nobody else seems to scratch his or her head over this, it would be wrong of us to make a thing of it. I mean, if Stanford is sufficiently satisfied with having its 12:30 game with UCLA relegated to the undercard Saturday, then good on the Cardinal. After all, they finally might have become comfortable with their stealthy relationship with the rest of the Bay Area.

USC-Cal was marked early as one of those bigbigBIG games, loaded with national import so great that it would break the seal of college football interest that runs along the ridge of the Rockies. And it still might be, if Cal happens to win the game. If not, the Golden Bears again will feel the sting of the conference's substandard secondary bowl lineup. Nobody will be pleased, and the grumbling will linger well into November because ... well, because that's what expectations have done to the Cal fan base. The game will draw interest not only because of what probably will happen, but because of the possibility of what might.

Stanford, on the other hand, is aiming to go 4-1 for only the sixth time in the last quarter-century (1986, 1992, 1995, 1997 and 2001), and in four of those five years, the Cardinal held serve often enough to reach a bowl. Strangely, it wasn't the Rose Bowl year of 1999, but because the Cardinal have gone seven seasons without any kind of bowl at a time when anyone who finishes the season gets a bowl, anything would look good to the Cardinal.

In fact, because 105 of the 120 FCS teams have been in a bowl game since Stanford's last appearance, the UCLA game actually matters a great deal, at least to Stanford's modest fan base. Think of it then as puppy love. It might not mean much to most folks, but it is everything to the puppies.

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